While Noctourniquet was, in typical Mars Volta fashion, written by Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and produced by Rodriguez-Lopez, the 13-track album explores musical territories previously uncharted in the duo’s 20 or so years of creating music together. The spectrum of musical and emotional textures conceived and created by Rodriguez-Lopez ranges from the opening bombast of “The Whip Hand” to the menacing crawl of “The Malkin Jewel” punctuated throughout by hypnotic melodies and borderline electro-ambient washes, most notably in the epic “In Absentia.” The bold diversity of the new material combined with Rodriguez-Lopez’s most confident and refined performances to date make Noctourniquet an early contender for this year’s most challenging and rewarding listen.